In the production of oil and gas, abundant quantities of water are produced. Sources of produced water can include water that may have been introduced into the subterranean formation as part of a well-completion or well-treatment process, water that may have been delivered as part of an injection-well driving process, formation water, and any mixture of any of these. For example, for every barrel of oil produced from a well, it is typical to also obtain about 10 barrels of produced water. Large quantities of flowback water and produced water continue to be disposed of as waste water, for example, by re-injecting the produced water into a disposal well. The produced water requires large storage capacity and creates a disposal problem in most of the cases, which ultimately contributes towards production cost.
The handling of huge quantities of produced or flowback water is major issue in oilfield industry. With the rising demand for potable water and freshwater, increasing public concern for the environment, and with the rising costs of obtaining potable water and freshwater, it would be desirable to be able to use lower quality water, such as flow back and produced water, in well treatments.
The produced water contains high concentrations of various dissolved salts, which adversely affect to the efficiency of viscosity-increasing agents, so it cannot be used “as it is” for preparing a fracturing fluid. Hence, due to the scarcity of fresh water, and the abundant availability of produced water at a well site, if it would be possible to make use of produced water for preparing fracturing fluids would be a more viable and economical alternative.